Basketball Nutrition

As for halftime, Osterman said they eat Balance Gold bars because, “It’s the right mix of carbohydrates and proteins. And it’s low in sugar. It’s a great bar — we buy in bulk. We probably go through 30 cases a month. During the game, they’ll also knock down Gatorade and water. And if someone is under the weather, we might cut some oranges up.”

Next, general advice for pre-practice meals:

“It’s a balance of carbohydrates and proteins,” he said. “Very little sugar in their diets. Their sugars are all natural — vegetables and fruits.

Finally, some post-exercise advice:

“After practice, we want carbs immediately back in their bodies, so they have to replenish…We don’t use a lot of oils and butters and we don’t deep-fry anything. Chicken is always boneless, skinless. If we use steak, it’s always filet mignon because it’s the leanest of the beefs we can use. We use quite a bit of turkey and we use bison — bison’s low in fat.

“The carbs that we mainly lean on are sweet potatoes and yams, because what we like is the long, burning carb. We put that in their system and it’s got to hold them three or four hours before it completely burns itself out. If we want to get something immediately after practice — baked potato. A lot of rice that we use with them and a lot of greens — broccoli, spinach.”